by Peggy Purser Freeman
The coldest day in Texas was also the day I found out I was in love with Josh Paul Younger, just like every other sappy, twelve-year-old girl who lived in Swisher County in the Texas Panhandle. And it was the day I lost my best friend, my twin sister, Shenandoah Jones. The Texas Almanac recorded February 12, 1899 as the coldest day in Texas history.
It was Josh Paul's favorite saying, "The coldest day in Texas." He would ride up to the school, slide off Feller's back and say, "That horse is meaner than the coldest day in Texas." Later, you could hear him mumbling as he left school, "This has been the worst day, worse than the coldest day in Texas." In the summertime, Josh Paul just changed cold to hot and started all over.
A week before Valentine's Day, I felt like I was coming down with the croup. Shenandoah had it the week before, but she caught everything. Doc Anderson said she suffered with a condition--a weak heart formed when she and I were still in Mama's stomach.
I knew I had to be coming down with some kind of sickness. That morning, when I accidentally touched Josh Paul's hand as we watered the teacher's little pine tree planted next to the school, my knees felt all weak and funny. Furthermore, at lunch time, I sat down on the bench by him and Shenandoah, and I couldn't swallow a bite of my bacon-and-biscuit-soaked-in-molasses sandwich.
"The croup," I assured myself. Our brothers, Augusta, Jackson, Murfrees, Russell and Shawnee had coughed for a week. Each of us were named after a place Mama and Papa had lived. Like a map, our names stretched from Virginia to Texas.
Right after lunch, in the middle of geography, I looked at Josh Paul and he, of course, was staring at my sister. Shenandoah was the most beautiful girl in Swisher County. Her blond hair curled down her back in natural ringlets, while mine could be rolled in rags for a month of Sundays and not have one wave. Even her name sounded as if it came out of a fancy magazine. Mine, Shiloh Anne, is disgusting! Mama said if people talked to me when I was little, I'd hide behind Shenandoah and blush. I got stuck with Shyanne for a nickname. Completely disgusting!
Shenandoah looked at Josh Paul and smiled her sweetest smile, as wide and pure as the panhandle's horizon.
I leaned my chin on my hands and glanced down at my skinny arms. My hair, not blond and not brown, but a muddy mixture of both, drooped down on my shoulders and fell to the desk before me.
My sister was nice. Mama said I could cause the Archangel himself to spout a stream of cuss words, but not even I could pick a fight with Shenandoah.
Miss Gibson, standing with her back to the window, was talking about something I probably needed to hear, but I knew Shenandoah would remember and repeat it tonight at supper.
"What do you think agriculture is, Shiloh?" Miss Gibson's voice floated by my ears, but her all-knowing look landed right between my hazel eyes.
I thought about the spanking I would get if Papa found out I was daydreaming again. One thing I liked about the Panhandle was the lack of trees. It meant fewer switches. Sometimes Papa made me pick up prairie coal--cow chips, for the fire--instead of spanking me. Picking up prairie coal was worse than a spanking. I moaned my favorite swear word under my breath.
"Oh, cow manure!"
"That's right, Shiloh." Miss Gibson smiled at me. "Agriculture is using...cow manure for fertilizer, rotating crops and breeding better cattle. It's the study of farming and ranching."
Miss Gibson was the best teacher I had ever had. Of course, she was the only teacher I had ever had. Mama taught Shenandoah and me up until we moved to Texas.
Miss Gibson touched my shoulder as she passed me on the way to her desk. "Very good, Shiloh," she said softly.
My answer was right? I smiled proudly. I was a genius! I set my mind to Miss Gibson's lesson and thought of how the study of agriculture could make Papa rich.
"My papa says there's not to be any talk of farming around here." Tom Spencer broke into Miss Gibson's discussion on wind-breaks.
"Your father's a rancher, and I understand his concern." Miss Gibson always answered comments like Tom's with patience. I would have tossed him out on one of his big ears just for being rude. Miss Gibson continued gently. "The ranchers are concerned about the free range being bought up and farmed."
"The big ranchers are forgetting they live in a free country." Oscar Roudell spoke up boldly. He was new to Swisher County and didn't know how powerful the ranchers were. "They are putting up so many fences some of us can't get to town."
Several boys started talking at once, each loudly stating his view--or mostly his papa's view--on fences and fence cutting. Miss Gibson tapped her pointer on her desk.
"I guess we need to have a rancher come and give us a lecture on the use of fences." Miss Gibson ended the debate with a third strike of the pointer. Strike four of the pointer would mean no recess. Recess suddenly became more important than each boy's view on the subject. "I'll plan it as soon as possible. Until that time this issue will not be debated on the playground, after school or at Sunday school. Is that clear?" Miss Gibson had been in Texas long enough to know the word "fence" was dangerous.
She continued her lesson on agriculture, and by recess, I had two or three ideas to tell Papa, ideas that could help our herd. Calling Sally and two heifers we hadn't seen much since summer a "herd" was like calling Papa the kind of man that would listen. As I put on my coat and walked out the door, I reminded myself that Papa didn't listen to anyone unless they had a bottle of liquor in their hand and were willing to share it.
I ran out to swing on the hitching rail. Tom Spencer followed me, as usual.
"Lightning struck our windmill last night," he said. Tom Spencer always had a tale of adventure to brag about. No one asked him to tell about it, because we knew he would anyway. "It cracked and zinged louder than the cannon at the parade last summer. The pole lit up and glowed. You couldn't even touch it, it was so hot."
Tom's expressions as he told his wild tale looked like he was in terrible pain. I think that's why we all listened, so we could watch his eyes get big and his mouth twist around like a tornado. The wilder the tale, the wilder his expressions. Josh Paul must have had his fill of Tom's stories, too.
"You're a barnyard bragger, Tom," he said. I had to agree.
"About all I believe of that tale is you have a windmill and it sprinkled last night," I added. Everyone in Tulia had a windmill in Tulia. It was known as "Windmill City." There was plenty of wind--in Tulia and in Tom's stories. I picked up a hoop and rolled it across the yard. Josh Paul trotted by and yanked my dress sash.
"I'll beat you to the hoop," he cried as he took off.
"You big cheat!" I yelled, running after him.
He gave the hoop another push just before I caught up.
"Rats," I yelled into the north wind. He stopped suddenly and looked at the bank of clouds boiling up in the sky.
"Those look like storm clouds." He squinted his eyes for a better view.
"Do you think it's going to rain?" I asked.
"I think it's going to do worse than that," Josh Paul yelled as he ran inside the school.
Moments later Miss Gibson and Josh Paul stood at the door looking at the sky. The wind whipped through Miss Gibson's auburn hair, pulling wispy curls down around her face. Josh Paul looked more like her son than he did his own mama's. His hair shimmered with the same shade of red.
Uneasy, I darted to where Shenandoah sat on the seesaw. "Josh Paul thinks it's going to storm," I said. It was the first time I had looked at my sister all day. You know how you walk with someone and talk to them, but you don't look at them. Blue tinted her mouth as she shivered.
"Shenandoah Jones," I said, trying to sound like Mama, "you get in that school building, right now." Shenandoah looked up at the windmill towering over us.
"I want to listen to the mockingbird. He barked like a dog this morning," she said. I placed a protective arm around her.
"It wasn't a mockingbird," I insisted. I knew mockingbirds did sometimes bark like a dog, but not in this temperature. "The only thing he would say today is brrr!" I pulled her toward the door. "It's too cold for a mockingbird out here, and it's too cold for you."
"No, it's not. I heard one." She glanced over her shoulder as I pushed her back into the schoolhouse.
Miss Gibson and Josh Paul stood by the window, still talking about the weather. Josh Paul suggested we close school and go home to wait for a snow storm. Everyone got their hopes up except me. I didn't love school, but anything was better than home.
"No, I won't let school out early," Miss Gibson said as she picked up the primer and sat down by the younger students. "You older students read page nine in your reader. Josh Paul, you start." Miss Gibson began reading with the little ones.
Twenty minutes later a knock interrupted our story. Mr. Walsh, who was working on the new church building across the pasture, came blowing in the door with a swirl of snow flakes the size of silver dollars.
"I'd like to pick up my young'uns, Miss Gibson, if you don't mind." Bundled in a heavy coat, a wool scarf and gloves, Mr. Walsh was dressed for the cold weather but still looked frozen. "The temperature is dropping fast. You might better send the kids that live close on home. Josh Paul, you and the Jones girls will never make it out to the creek. You'd better wait here for your folks."
"Do you think it's that bad, Mr. Walsh?" Miss Gibson hadn't spent a winter in Texas and didn't realize the weather could get mean fast.
"It's snowing so hard I could barely see, ma'am." Mr. Walsh buttoned up his kids' coats and wrestled the door open to herd his brood out into the buggy.
"I can't fight all of you and this temperamental weather." Miss Gibson teased. "If you live nearby, go home."
Everybody whooped and hollered. I did too. Miss Gibson wouldn't make us study without the others, and I sure wouldn't miss walking the six miles to our farm.
I grinned at Shenandoah and said, "We'll never get home in time to do our chores."
"I won't get to feed the animals or help Mama with supper," Shenandoah said. She loved doing chores. She had to be either an angel or crazy.
Miss Gibson put away her books and straightened her desk. "Josh Paul, if we're going to wait for a while, you and I better make sure the fire stays warm. Get some more cow-chips, please. Shiloh, fix the three of you a snack from my pantry in the coat closet--a third of an apple a piece. Remember your fractions?"
I remembered I couldn't do them. "Yes ma'am," I answered politely. Cutting an apple into equal thirds was as hard as trying to subtract fractions. Fourths I could manage, but I could never tell how to get three pieces of an apple the same size. Josh Paul burst through the door in a gust of frigid air.
"It's bad out," he said. "There ain't nothin' between Texas and the North Pole except a barbed wire fence, and it's down for sure." He turned and added some fuel on the fire. "I doubt my papa can make it in with Feller. That horse is getting mighty old. He's been limping again. That's why I had to walk today."
"I'm sure your father will come," Miss Gibson's smile didn't seem as bright as it did before. "If he doesn't, we'll just make pallets by the fire and stay here tonight." With Miss Gibson, everything was like a picnic. I looked out the window but couldn't see the school's windmill through the blowing snow, much less the town two miles to the southwest. Miss Gibson's eyes followed mine to the storm outside, then rested on my sister.
"Shenandoah, are you warm enough?" Miss Gibson tried to keep the worry from her voice, but it didn't fool me, and I guess it didn't fool Josh Paul.
"It will probably be eighty degrees by tomorrow afternoon." Josh Paul's voice cracked a little. It had been doing that a lot since he turned thirteen.
"Surely, it won't change that fast," Miss Gibson laughed.
"You know what they say about Texas weather." Josh Paul smiled that crooked grin that made my stomach feel queasy. "If you don't like the weather, wait an hour and it will change."
He was right. In an hour the storm changed. It grew worse. Much worse!